We continued following KawadiKhola, which was now
flowing north to south. The region along this river remains sparsely populated,
with few small settlements before reaching the villages of Baudi
and Yuna. During that section of the trek, two of our
mules lost balance and felt on a bridge (the one crossing ChhimdiKhola). This event could have ended dramatically, but
fortunately, in large part thanks to the assistance of local people present on
the scene, only one of our mules got injured.

Map:The itinerary
of this section of the trek is shown in red dotted line in the topographic map
below. Consecutive blue vertical and horizontal lines are spaced by 1km.

Below Lampato,
camp of people returning home from their monsoon pasture.

Two children at this camp.

Encounter with another caravan of goats
further down along the river.

KawadiKhola.

View of KawadiKhola just before reaching Chhimdi
Kola.

Cows crossing Chhimdi
Khola downstream of the bridge, with Kawadi Khola visible behind the black cows
on the right. Our mules should have done the same, rather than using the
bridge!

The situation on the bridge over Chhimdi Khola soon after two of our mules
tumbled. The bridge deck was made of two parallel wood beams with a space
between them (see photo below). One shoe of the first mule felt into this space
causing her leg to get jammed between the two beams. The following mule then
lost balance and felt, but stopped (temporarily) the fall into the river by ″grabbing″
one beam with her front legs. The muleteer first tried to help the second mule,
but realized that this was hopeless and switched to help the first mule. Honey
hunters, who were taking a break near the bridge, immediately came to help (on
the left of the photos). On the right Dawa#1 and Dawa#2 try to prevent two
other mules from advancing further on the bridge and making the situation even
worse.

Left: Three honey hunters delicately
increasing the gap between to two beams to free the first mule′s leg.
Right: View of the gap between the beams. After unloading the first mule and
pulling her out of the gap, she eventually reached the other side of the river
unharmed.

Meanwhile, the second mule had to let it
go (after hanging for more than 5 minutes!). She felt into the river,
fortunately at a place where the water was relatively deep, and got out of the
river by herself. Miraculously she did not suffer any broken bone, only some
injury above her front left shoe. She was expected to recover.

Following this tense incident, the
muleteer (under shock) decided to return to Simikot
with his four unharmed mules and leave the injured mule in a nearby settlement
(Gumba) until she recovers. The honey hunters, who
were all from the village of Yuna, offered to help us
to carry our bags to Yuna and to arrange a smaller
group of porters from Yuna to Kolti.

A section of the valley with tall
trees...

...followed by another section bordered
by high cliffs.

Other views of KawadiKhola.

Man carrying an antique rifle.

Trail soon before reaching NetiKhola.

Herd of cows fording NetiKhola.

Shepherds and sheep about to cross NetiKhola (on a bridge).

Houses of Baudi.

Women in Baudi.

Between Baudi
and Yuna.

The village of Yuna
is built on a slope about 150m above KawadiKhola. We set a camp near the river, below the village. The
friendly honey hunters who had accompanied us since the ChhimdiKhola bridge incident returned to their homes. One of
them arranged a team of three porters to help us to complete our trek to Kolti.